Loan Ranger

Loan Ranger seldom likes to admit defeat. So it is with a heavy heart and a blistering headache that we takes our cowboy hats off to SEB’s Michael Dicks and Krissy Rands, who proved how very wrong we were in thinking that marathon liquid lunches were a thing of the past.

The ranch is always excited when press releases come through from the esteemed (and now chairman-less) LMA. And, sure enough, we were on the edge of our seats this week when one was sent entitled "LMA Launches New Guidelines for MLAs and Recommendations on the Syndication Timeline".

What is Loan Ranger to do when you get a week like this one?

Restructuring professionals are finding their new in-vogue status hard to handle — they’re rushed off their feet with lots of requests to make celebrity appearances at conferences, not to mention all the pesky companies they have to restructure.

And the Loan Ranger award for longest journey to reach a snow-stricken London in time for the loans dinner goes to... Commerzbank’s Michael Legeland. Legend has it that Michael, unwilling to risk taking a plane in case it was cancelled, endured a seven and a half hour train journey from Germany to make it to the Guildhall on time.

Thought the Golden Globes were glam? Then think again, boys and girls. Next Tuesday, for one night only, the loan market’s glitterati will be waltzing down the red carpet for the syndications event of the year at the EuroWeek dinner.

Loan Ranger ain’t the traditional church-going type, but he can on occasion be persuaded to quit roaming the Wild West to attend a good old knees-up in one, especially when there’s rosé wine on offer. And so, it seems, can others.

Is the beastly state of the market getting you down? Don’t let it.

Welcome to 2009 — a year, to quote that sage old Donald Rumsfeld, of unknown unknowns in the financial markets. Or is it known unknowns? Based on the loan marketeers’ crystal ball gazing skills, Loan Ranger can safely say that no one has a clue what’s going to happen.

Has Gordon Brown been sending some of his top spin doctors over Royal Bank of Scotland’s way? Loan Ranger knows that in the awards season, banks are prone to a lot of campaigning when it comes to raising votes for EuroWeek’s poll, and this is all part of the fun. But RBS’s campaign appears to have been so successful that one enthusiastic voter has nominated them for every category under the sun.

What’s the best way of keeping up with the score at the Varsity match when you’re stuck in the office all day? Equip yourself with a list of loans bankers’ cell numbers and email addresses, and off you go.

It is a truth not so widely acknowledged that financial crises bring out the best in bankers.